


Leaving in the Fall

by untropicalisland



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, ashes to ashes fun to funky he's off to join the celestial hunty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24864904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untropicalisland/pseuds/untropicalisland
Summary: Azu lights candles for Sasha and Grizzop.
Relationships: Azu & Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Leaving in the Fall

The first candle is easy. Azu does not know for certain where Sasha would have gone in the afterlife, but Sasha had trusted the Cult of Aphrodite with her letter and Aphrodite would have in turn welcomed a person who built such a family. Azu whispers a traditional prayer, and then pauses for a moment.  
“May we all live as long and full a life as the one you found. I’ll see you again one day,” she says as she lights the incense. 

The second candle is harder. Artemis is a very different goddess, and Azu doesn’t know her prayers. She’s not even sure if the cult of Artemis has prayers for mourners. Artemis is always about doing, about moving forward. Moving on.  
She lights it and kneels and tries, falteringly. “I’m sorry you didn’t get more time. But you gave Sasha so much time, and Vesseek is alright, and Sasha’s friend, and Hamid’s brother, and - and mine, and…Grizzop, I don't know what to say.”

She hears a soft voice behind her speak a phrase in a language she doesn’t recognize, and turns to see Wilde over her shoulder.  
“People translate it as ‘May the road rise to meet you,’ but it’s really more ‘May the road succeed with you’. It’s a wish that the listener,” he tilts his head towards the second candle “be successful on their journeys.”

“Thank you,” Azu says softly, as she stands up. “I think he’d have liked that.”

“He’ll be missed too,” says Wilde, as he stares into the flame. “He didn’t like me much. Something I said in Prague when we met. I don’t think I did anything particularly over the top - well, for me anyway - but it doesn’t matter, that’s what he heard and I never tried to make it better. And that was around when I started having a few, shall we say, difficulties, so maybe I did muck it up.”

“He was complicated,” says Azu, “and even he and I didn’t always agree on what was the right thing to do, or how to do it, most of the time, but he was a good person.”

“Mm,” says Wilde. “He saved me. Quite literally. I don't know if he had the chance to tell you. I took very ill the day after you left Damascus, so he dragged me to the cult of Artemis to get me fixed up. Mind you he wasn’t very nice during any of it, but he took care of a lot of my work and he let me sleep for almost a full day. I didn’t think he had it in him. The letting me sleep, I mean.”

“He would have hated the quarantines,” says Azu. "No one likes them, but him especially. I don't think he could have withstood days spent doing nothing.” Wilde nods, but his eyes are still distant.

“I always thought, if I were a very, very good boy,” he says, the unscarred eyebrow and corner of his mouth both lifting with a trace of the archness Azu had only seen in Cairo, “that I’d end up in the realm of Thalia, if she has one, or her portion of Apollo’s if she doesn’t. Maybe even Zeus, in my old work. But as of late I am, horror of horrors, coming around to Artemis's viewpoint.” He sighs and rubs his face. “I really wish I could have apologized.”

“We all wish for more chances with someone,” says Azu.

She suddenly misses Grizzop not as part of the vast ever-present ache for the world that disappeared when she was in Rome, but sharply, terribly. She knows it’s selfish, but then it’s always a little selfish to miss someone. She wants someone to talk to about the gods. Zolf is caught in his own theological turmoil (Hamid indicated this had been a theme) and she doubts he's in a place to help her untangle hers. She wants someone to reassure her that they're not like the Meritocrats, not convening only to withdraw and leave the world to fend for itself, that they have some sort of plan. Artemis wouldn’t like all this waiting around and restrictions, and she can’t imagine Aphrodite wants this world either, one where your friends are dead until proven otherwise every time they venture out. She knows the gods are there because she can heal and smite, but she does not know what they want anymore.

“That we do,” says Wilde, interrupting her thoughts. He picks up the packet of incense. "Heals loneliness and calms in turbulent times, it says. It would be nice if that were true." He falls silent for a few moments.

“Do you have any more blessings for him?” Azu finally asks around the lump in her throat.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid. I think the fact that Sasha was able to grow old enough to have stiff joints and adoptive grandchildren and the Harlequins is his blessing, and we will strive to earn it. He’s had a millennium and a half on the celestial hunt. There's a faint chance that might just be enough for him to have learned to be patient with us.” Wilde turns to leave, and Azu can hear him humming something sweet and sad and quiet as he walks back to his study.

**Author's Note:**

> The real Oscar Wilde, and presumably the RQG version, was Irish, and while the full saying we usually hear/see on posters today (may the road rise to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back, etc) is a recent invention, the first line is based on an old Irish language blessing as Wilde explains.
> 
> The title is taken from the song The Wild (Wilde?) Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth. An appropriate song for Grizzop on many levels, and the pun on the word fall is very much intentional. Wilde's in this story, after all; there's got to be a pun somewhere.


End file.
